The present invention relates to a level shifter and, for example, relates to a level shifter suitable for a high-speed operation.
The internal voltage of a semiconductor device becomes lower upon a reduction in power consumption. Accordingly, a voltage difference between the internal voltage and the external voltage of the semiconductor device increases. A level shifter that serves as an interface between the inside and the outside of the semiconductor device is required to achieve a high-speed operation without degrading reliability even when a voltage difference between an input voltage and an output voltage is large.
As a related technique, a level shifter that can achieve a high-speed operation is disclosed in “Wen-Tai Wang et al., “Level Shifters for High-speed 1-V to 3.3-V Interfaces in a 0.13-um Cu-Interconnection/Low-k CMOS Technology”, IEEE, 2001, pp 307-310″.